This invention relates to guns, particularly rifles having firing pins.
Every gun has a mechanism which fires an ammunition round when the trigger is pulled. Most guns have at least one safety to prevent inadvertent discharge of the round. Typically, a spring-loaded hammer is released when the trigger is pulled; the hammer falls either directly against a round, or against a firing pin which in turn strikes the round. Firing pin safeties are sometimes used in the latter type of gun. Trigger safeties are very common in all types. Neither type of safety, however, prevents certain types of inadvertent firing, for example when a loaded gun is dropped. Then the hammer may strike the round or the firing pin, without the trigger having been moved.